Nagle Profile: Mr. Andrew Houseman

Rahiel Abusador

Nagle Profile: Mr. Andrew Houseman

Rahiel Abusador

interview by Rahiel Abusador

Mr Houseman a member of the nagle staff community for six years has as a teacher and a year co-ordinator. Interviewing Mr houseman was a new and intresting exeriance for me, getting to know him is something that got me an intake of what he's thought about Nagle College.

1. So you grow up in Sydney, how was your childhood like and growing up?

"i love where i grow up there was a bit of bush land around and so i used to go exploring when i was younger, my house backed onto a primary school so we would jump over the fence and play on the grounds, tennis courts and cricket nets and ovals and parks all that sort of stuff it was a lot of fun lots of space to play in."

2.You attending St. Monica's primary school and Marist Brothers high school did you actually enjoy school?

"I loved school it was a great place i did well and had a lot of friends and it was a very happy place for me."

3. What were your teachers like in school?

"My best memories are with my high school teachers, your best memories are with teachers that you actually enjoy having.. what i remember most is the relationship with some of the teachers, the way you could connect with them and understand where their coming from and the respect you had for them there was that relationship and there was teachers were you had a different relationship with where they had such an affective at teaching you that you just admire them for their ability to teach, different styles and different ways to relate to some teachers"

4. has becoming a teacher always your career choice ?

" It actually wasn't it was my family and my parent were teachers it something that was always a known occupation to me i knew what teachers had to do i saw the work they did at home i saw the hours they came in on the weekends on holidays and extra thing there so i knew what teaching was all about, but i was interested in sport i was think of doing physiotherapy, that was something that was interesting to me but the cut off marks for universities were getting higher and higher and well off in the nineties by the time i went through i missed out by a bit. i was happy and satisfied and going into teaching."

5. If your parents weren't teachers would you have still chosen teaching as a profession ?

" I don't know it seemed as an obvious choice for me i was happy….i don't ono in some ways it was something i could see myself doing for a long long time to me it was the known then the unknown and the known career was something that felt more confutable it didn't seem as scary, i don't know maybe."

6. Why did you choose to work at an all girls school why not boys or co-ed?

" Ive taught at a co-ed schools I've taught at boys schools i never taught at a girls school, i have two young daughters of my own and they will be attending an all girls school and i thought it was important for me to know he environment is like so that their school experience is so much as a mystery to me, i wanted to have an understanding of what girls are like together when its an all girl environment so i could relate to what their experiences would be and it wasn't join to be some life of theirs that was an unknown quantity to me."

7. What was your first day teaching at Nagle like ?

" It was good… i loved this place from the first moment i came in here… coming from a boys school there was some different things as far as the boys culture and girls culture is concerned, girls might be chatty at times..boys are physical in the way they interact so they would physically get up and move around the class and physically interact by pushing each other and wrestling and things like that girls don't necessarily do that and sometimes boys you need to give the same instructions a few times to get it right and girls you generally need to once that was a reminder given to me by one of the girls on the first day i think, i repeated an instruction and i was very firm in the way i said it and the girl in the line and she said to me " sir its ok you don't need to yell were only girls we'll do it".

8. Does that make the switch from boys to girls easier?

" It dee make it easier its different though some things aren't easy but are easy in many ways".

9. Do you still enjoy teaching like you did when you first started?

" Teaching is very different now to what it was like when i started in some ways much beet and in some ways you scratch your head and wonder why your doing certain things but that would be the same in any job, when i started i had a black board and chalk but we don't have that anymore and we would have had maybe one classroom of computers that you were lucky to get once a year, there was no such thing as school wifi and all that sort of thing it was a very different system to what we have today as far as using technology in your classrooms and things like that, i still have the enthusiasm and enjoyment of teaching would come back and do it again and again".

10. What subjects do you teach here in Nagle?

" I teach PE I taught a two unit course for year 11 and 12,and I also teach Religion.. this year in year 9, 10 and 11".

11. looking back at your journey in teaching would you have chosen or done anything differently?

" Umm, No I'm very happy with the the decitions I've made sure I've been at schools for a long enough period of time to ono what I'm doing in the place and feel confutable but I've been able to move on and have new experiences and new challenges which have helped me professionally there are thing that i have learnt here that i wouldn't have been able to do or experience at other places I've been to so every move i made has been one for the better and happy that I've been able to do that. I was lucky enough that in one stage to spend a year over seas teaching in London so i went to a number of schools teaching as a casual teacher it was a fantastic experience and one of the hardest years in teaching but it was one where i learnt so much it was great".

12. teaching at an all girl school how do you deal with all the drama?

" there are girls that would act crazy there are boys that would act crazy so its just the matter of what happens when you deal with teenagers at times they go a bit crazy and that happens you just except it and there is ways of working with it other then rather then anything else so you just got to remember that their going through their own experiences and you've got to respect that and respect them then their reactions are normal for them but it might not be normal for you and might look at them and think their a little bit off he ball today and maybe a little bit crazy but what they are experiencing is real for them respect that but work with them to get them on track".

13. So being given the role of co-ordinator and a teacher does it seem more hard that you have a bigger role?

"Ive been a year co-ordinator for about 10 years now i was a year co-ordinator at my previous school so I'm quit experienced in the role and its something i really love doing and feel as though it brings a little extra to the role of teaching to work individually with students is something that i need to keep going and is something that is important to me, being able to work outside the classroom environment with certain students and help them get through some of the issues they have whether its at school or at home or in their life that can be vey satisfying as well".